Broken Dreams
by Rose G
Summary: How Smithy copes with the days where all he can think of are the men he's killed. Hurting his body to ease his mind - and never, ever sharing the pain of his secret while he tries to find oblivion.


Broken Dreams

Rose G

Disclaimer – Not my property, making no money from using them. 'Boulevard of Broken Dreams' belongs to Greenday.

A / N – No real spoilers; very imprecise time line but sometime after Mickey Webb's last episodes. The grammar is the emails is slack, I know that. Also, very harrowing scenes including some mild m/m so be warned.

_I walk a lonely road,_

_The only one that I have ever known._

_Don't know where it goes_

_But its home to me and I walk alone._

_I walk this empty street_

_On the Boulevard of Broken Dreams_

_Where the city sleeps._

_And I'm the only one, and I walk alone._

_I walk alone._

_My shadow's the only one that walks beside me_

_My shallow heart's the only thing that's beating._

_Sometimes I wish some-one out there will find me._

_ Greenday, Boulevard of Broken Dreams_

Smithy jerked his head out of his hands and managed to fasten his attention on the paperwork as Inspector Gold walked into the office. 'You alright, Sergeant?'

'Yes, ma'am.' He smiled briefly, forced himself to keep that expression until she'd left with the shift details that he'd written out earlier.

A bad day. Not the sort of bad day that his relief talked about, when cars wouldn't start and lunch was burnt and witnesses evaporated before your eyes. A bard day; where he remembered the kick of a rifle in his hands, the gun smoke in his nostrils. Where screams rung in his ears and made him spend hours in the toilets, trying to throw up everything he'd eaten, until it was blood that he vomited.

Blood was the thing…Blood of those men he'd killed in Ireland; blood from the bomb-blast that had marked his face. Sometimes, during these times, he'd cut himself –accidentally, while shaving, knowing in his heart that it was deliberate. The blood made it easier, replaced the pain in his mind. The jagged wound across his ribs and under his nipple throbbed as he thought of it, reminding him that it was only hours old – the first time he'd cut himself other than on his face or upper arms.

Bad day…he felt dizzy, sick. That was nothing new; he felt it more and more often these days. Smithy didn't expect that any of the relief knew of what he suffered, so never expected that any of them would try to help him. He knew that he hid it well, abusing his body in private to avenge what he had done to others and he carried his pain alone. The fact that he wanted to share it was the reason he carried it alone. Not shared. Never, ever shared so that some-one would hold him and comfort him.

He knew that he would never tolerate it from any of his men. He knew their problems, had seen Luke Ashton grow up, Jim Carver sober up, shared all their traumas but this was his alone. Too senior in rank to turn to one of those below him, too ashamed to ask a superior. No-one to help him. The story of his life.

Shakily, he went and washed his hands, laving them and his face in water so hot that it almost scalded the skin. He gasped once, and then kept his hands under the tap until the pain had him sobbing for breath. The blood of those men he had killed without ever touching them was still there, the blood of his friends whom he killed in Ulster by not being worthy of his Sergeant's rank. His own blood from an injury inflicted by another man, an injury that had hurt his soul more than his body was still there.

Chest heaving, he glanced at his watch and saw that it was nearly shift change. He hoped that he was sober enough to drive – he'd drank too much from the bottle he kept in his desk for when he felt like this – and although he'd brought most of it straight back up, he still felt woozy. Still, he carried deaths on his conscience already, so what difference would more make as long as they were not deliberate? _I'll never kill deliberately, never again. Seven men I killed because I was told to. _He knew what caused this depression, why he had had to leave SO19 when he'd killed that man and been unable to forget the gurgling breath in broken lungs as he died – but the killing had only been most of it.

Swaying on his feet, he was able to change, gather his belongings and start the car up. The effort started his cut bleeding again, a trickle that he absently stemmed with his shirt. Dealing with the pain was automatic now, something he'd done too many times before. The rhythm of the slow drive through the heavy traffic didn't help; it gave him too much time to think. Bad day…the words reverberated through his skull as he walked over to the club. No-one looked at him as he paid and went in, nobody looking twice at his haunted brown eyes until he was leaning against the wall staring at the bar and the way in which his tears turned the bright lights to multi-coloured streamers.

Smithy could feel the fear rising, the pulse thumping through his veins, all his muscles tensing to run. A fear that went some way towards assuaging the self-loathing that was tearing him apart. It helped with the pain in his mind, as did the jangling pain of the slash across his ribs. He was feeling something of what those he had killed had felt, feeling a sort of justice.

His few silent tears soon ceased as he stood in the shadows, waiting for some-one to catch his eye. Only men came here; men who sometimes found his scarred face and sardonic smile that never touched his eyes attractive. Occasionally, one of them would make advances, offer to go home with him – offers that he accepted and endured even as the fear threatened to engulf him as he remembered how much he hated any man touching him; yet Smithy would allow it, and then, a while later, go looking for it again.

It was a young man, no more than a teenager really, who took pity on him that evening, attracted by the catch in Smithy's voice and his diffident nature. Smithy talked to him, aware of the bile rising in his throat and the gradual shift of the black memories from the kickback of his guns to the man in the barracks tripping him, forcing him to the ground. A fit punishment for a killer who chose to kill perhaps, but surely not one who killed because he was told to.

He allowed the other man to kiss him, to walk him to his car. He didn't see the man's face against his, only the men of his squad that he'd lead to their deaths in Ulster. He deserved this, every flicker of pain and fear was only fair.

Smithy woke in his own bed before dawn the next morning. The other man – still nameless – had already left and Smithy felt that his whole body was on fire. The pain in his mind had been eased to a great extent, yet he was grateful for the darkness of the room which allowed him to surrender to his tears and sorrow in private safety. The stink of semen and his own fear sweat brought the tears easily to his eyes.

He'd taken no joy from the other man, simply allowed him to use his body; the way it always was with those he brought home. He couldn't recollect any conversation, anything other than that one kiss in the bar and the man using his body. Smithy had hated every second of it, had almost screamed at him to stop and he knew in any circumstance, it would have described as rape.

Once the tears had been exhausted, he showered quickly and tried to remember what work he had for today. The water, more tepid than warm, eased his muscles and, he hoped, removed all marks of the previous night except for the still livid cut. The relaxation lasted until he began to wonder why he did this to himself so often…

Smithy knew that in allowing other men to bed him, he was making a conscious choice to undergo, again, what he had been forced to experience that night when he was still in the Army. The pain from that would never go away, so in experiencing it again, he was keeping that original pain alive and that was payback, both for being a victim so weak as to allow it, and for being a criminal.

He knew it would have worked if being a victim was the only thing he wanted absolution for. Professionally, he knew it was not his fault; it was for his weakness in not reporting the incident and for lying to Mickey Webb, which he needed to be forgiven for and could not be, for no-one else knew.

But he was a criminal as well; had committed crimes worse than any of those he'd arrested people for. He'd shot dead an unarmed man, who was crying and begging; Smithy had looked to his superior for guidance and the man had nodded and Smithy had pulled the trigger and the man had dropped and had died as he fell…And no-one could forgive him for killing, even those of the higher ranks at Sun Hill who had seen his records and knew what he'd done because the records didn't talk about the mistake he'd made with that bomb, where his mates had died because he thought it was a hoax.

Eventually, he stepped out of the shower, stripping the water off his skin with his bare hands. He dressed quickly, booting his computer up as he made himself breakfast. There was a message from Mickey Webb in his inbox, so conversational that he read it twice before realising the despairing tone.

_Hi Smithy_

_Its me. Look, u know bout that Army mate of yours that was raped do u think he'd talk 2 me? I want to talk to someone bout it all and all them groups they recommended to me r for women. Not prepared to get a sex change just 2 talk it out!_

_MITs great. Come try it someday. DCIs coming now. _

_Bye. Give me his email address if u can. Please? _

_Mickey._

Reluctantly, Smithy began to type up a reply. He pushed his breakfast away, his appetite gone.

_Mickey_

_Glad MITs going alright. Give me regards to Eva._

_I can't give you his email. I know him well and he just wants to pretend that it never happened. And he never even reported it; never told anyone except me, let alone pressed charges, so he couldn't help you with any of that or help you deal with it when it goes to court. Also, your getting on with your life, and he's never got over it. He sleeps with other men, now, even though he's straight; they almost rape him and he lets it go because he thinks he deserves it because of what he's done and had done to him. You're doing much better than he ever did, or will do._

_I'm so sorry, Mickey. _

_Smithy_

He sent the email, and then left for Sun Hill. He choked down some painkillers to take away the lingering pain from last night and was dressed in his uniform before Gold arrived.

He was Sergeant Dale Smith. He hadn't killed men, enemies and comrades, hadn't been raped, hadn't lied to Mickey when the younger man had been out of his mind with panic and despair. The grief and self-loathing were locked away, deep in his mind, where no-one could see them until the next day like yesterday arrived. But still, he hurt so much, so very much and he couldn't take much more. He wanted to be held by some-one, wanted it so badly that the desire was like a knife. He wanted to tell some-one.

Miles away, Mickey opened his email and wondered about that last sentence that Smithy had written.


End file.
